Happy New Year People!

Training for a Half Marathon, whether you are walking or running, will consist of much the same content.  You know how it goes; run a given period or distance, increasing in intensity and duration over time.  Throw in some stretches and cross training and you have a basic formula for a training program. The variation in the training programs comes with your own schedule and goals and directly relates to the intensity you wish to train with.

That’s where the Vineyard Half Marathon training program comes in.  I’m sure you will be aware that we have teamed up with two powerhouses of training, Nic Gill and TrainingPeaks.  TrainingPeaks is a web based training site that is used by elite athletes around the world, including New Zealand’s own High Performance athletes.  Nic Gill has a stellar career coaching elite athletes to heights of achievement, including World Cup success.  The combination is a powerful training tool whether you’re aiming to beat your own time, or everyone else’s.

The advantages of the TrainingPeaks site is in its scheduling and tracking of an athletes progress.  The program allows a trainer (in our case Nic Gill) to upload a training program to your calendar and for you to upload and report your own performance against that calendar.  TrainingPeaks then offers a range of graphs and metrics for you to monitor your own progress.  You’ll also get email reminders and a host of options for sharing your workouts on social media (should you desire!).  Your data can be recorded in a number of ways, we particularly like the smart phone apps for both apple and android phones which record the data to your phone and then to your calendar.  Its a pretty easy process but you can read about it here or follow our updates on this blog…if you prefer to talk to a human you can ring us and we will talk you through the process.

Look at our training page on this website to see how you can sign up for the program.  We believe this will be a great advantage to those that want to be fully prepared and to challenge themselves to do their best.  Despite making Maa Nonu, Conrad Smith and other All Blacks sweat and tremble, Nic is one of the nicest trainers we’ve met.  His motivation is all about seeing people achieving their best results, whatever their level.

Happy Training

Chris